Businessman's Used-Textbook Drive Hits a Warehouse-Sized Bottleneck

Fred Giuffrida, a businessman in King of Prussia, Pa., figured it
would be no sweat.

As the new chairman of the local Rotary Club's international
committee, he would continue an annual book drive, collecting a few
cartons of used books and sending them off to needy English readers in
West Africa.

Why not invite donations of used school textbooks, his wife Barbara,
a mathematics teacher, suggested.

"I thought that was a good idea," Mr. Giuffrida said in an interview
last week. But, he laughed, "it exploded in my face."

Three months into the drive, Mr. Giuffrida is now the stunned
guardian of more than 35,000 used schoolbooks, bestowed on him in
truckloads by four Philadelphia-area school districts.

The books sit, carton upon carton, in unused retail space at the
local mall, provided by two fellow Rotarians.

Some of the books--which range from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to
paperback novels and teachers' aids, such as flip charts--have recent
dates of publication and appear never to have been used, Mr. Giuffrida
said.

The variety of volumes is enormous, he said, including a case of
books entitled "How To Get Pregnant."

Lately, Mr. Giuffrida has tried to discourage further donations, or,
as he said, "turn the faucet off until I can find the other end of the
pipeline."

More books now would be "like buying a bucket of sand for Lawrence
of Arabia," he said.

But the pipeline may be opening.

Inquiries from potential book recipients have been coming in
steadily, Mr. Giuffrida said. He said he has had calls from as far away
as Nigeria and the Philippines, as well as from a New York City group
that sends books to black townships in South Africa.

The books' destinations will be up to the Rotary Club, Mr. Giuffrida
said, and the feeling among members is to keep them in
Pennsylvania.

The poorest school districts in the state will likely have high
priority, he said, then perhaps some Philadelphia schools, which have
also expressed interest.

When those schools have picked over the lot, he added, "then we'll
call some of these people from foreign countries."

Officials at one of Pennsylvania's less-affluent districts have
already sent Mr. Giuffrida a copy of their approved-textbook list. Jim
Davis, curriculum and federal-programs coordinator for the Northern
Tioga School District in Elkland, called the book drive "a great
idea."

While Mr. Davis said the rural district is financially pressed,
textbooks have a high priority and the district has yet to have any
students without them.

But, he said, "if we can save some dollars in terms of textbooks,
then maybe we can shift that to areas that have a little less priority,
like building maintenance."

Mr. Davis said he is so interested that if he finds Mr. Giuffrida's
books include titles on his list, he may make the five-hour drive to
King of Prussia to go through them himself.

Gilbert T. Sewall, director of the American Textbook Council, which
monitors and reviews textbooks, also hailed Mr. Giuffrida's
venture.

Easily 1 million schoolbooks are discarded each year and end up in
incinerators or landfills, the way most solid waste does, Mr. Sewall
said.

"If this guy is finding a good home for old books in acceptable
condition, his efforts should be encouraged and applauded," he
said.

Taking inventory of the mountains of books is perhaps Mr.
Giuffrida's most pressing problem. He hopes to have volunteers sort
them by subject during the holidays.

"The important thing here is to get books into the hands of people
who can use them," Mr. Giuffrida said.

When his committee chairmanship is up in June, however, Mr.
Giuffrida said oversight of the overwhelming project, which he hopes
will continue, will go to someone else.

"I think this is something very important," he said. "We're rescuing
these books from a landfill."

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